Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp’s last album Senior was a step into the more ambient world, they delivered an album filled with instrumentals and distanced themselves away from their previous experimentation with vocal manipulation and pop ready hooks. Unfortunately the album wasn’t so well received as their earlier material, so earlier this year they released a mini album featuring Scandinavian legend Robyn, entitled Do It Again. It saw Röyksopp return to their more hook driven ways, and marked a clearer musical indication as to which way they were going. The Inevitable End is a reference to both the end of their albums and their pessimistic ideas on the album platform itself, but more importantly will serve as Röyksopp’s last ever album.
To go with the pessimistic ideas they have about the album format, this album is naturally a lot more focused on the melodramatic lyrics. They use lyrics in many different way though on a lot of the songs they go back to experimenting with vocoder effects. These vocoder effects have mixed results, sometimes they will insist on drowning out the vocals completely like Daft Punk have a tendency to do, but all they end up doing is making the songs feel non-relatable and often cheesy, like the song ‘Sordid Affair‘ with guest singer Ryan James which is one of the duller moments on here, instrumentally speaking.
Other times it works brilliantly like all three songs with Jamie McDermott singing, where they allow the human side of him to shine through while occasionally producing the desired vocoder effect in a more subtle way. Röyksopp use melodrama to humour us in parts on this album too – for instance, the song ‘Rong‘, which features Robyn repeating the line ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?‘, while some very delicate strings play softly in the background, which will be sure to make your ears perk up.
Of course Röyksopp do have songs that are dance floor ready on this album! The song ‘Save Me‘ which features guest singer Susanne Sundfør, has a hook that screams out that is overly emotive, but it is accompanied with these glitchy and schizophrenic synth lines and drum beats. Other songs on here sound like they’re from some sort of 80’s Sci-Fi TV show, and they’ve been transported directly to the dance floor with these warm synths buzzing lingering on these tracks.
Honestly a lot of the time on here you get what you pay for and it just sounds like a classic Röyksopp record. This album has them returning to their more vocal, poppy side with songs that feature catchy hooks throughout. The difference is these songs have added depth to them due to the more direct approach Röyksopp took regarding lyrics, even if it’s effect is a bit hit or miss with resonating with you. It may not win over any new fans, but this record will prove to be a welcome goodbye for old ones.
